ozarque: Recommended link.....

ozarque (

ozarque) wrote,
@ 2005-12-14 17:31:00

Recommended link.....
If you haven't yet read Dan Seligman's article "Gapology 101" in the December 12, 2005 issue of Forbes, you can read it at http://www.blackenterprise.com/yb/ybopen.asp?section=ybng&story_id=86216878&ID=blackenterprise . Seligman's thesis is perfectly straightforward: The achievement gap between privileged students and poor ones cannot be closed; it's hopeless to try. The poor and disadvantaged, he tells us, "have less cognitive ability than those from higher-status families."

(Post a new comment)

	mark_argent 2005-12-14 05:44 pm UTC (link)
	Now, I'm just a lowly college dropout, but isn't this article a case of using one's thesis to prove the argument? (Reply to this)

	conuly 2005-12-14 05:46 pm UTC (link)
	Well, that's certainly a convenient belief! (Reply to this)

psongster
2005-12-14 06:04 pm UTC (link)

This seems related to me to your observations about dietary habits in poor Ozark families (which are rather similar to dietary habits I observed in poor urban New Jersey families).

I think it is possible that there are real biological differences (on average, of course!) between those who grow up poor and those who grow up affluent. There's nutrition and lead exposure to begin with, plus the tendency of pollution-producing industries to be located near poor communities. And what does stress do to a developing brain?

So I agree with those who say the schools can't do everything. It is true, I think, that people have different mental capabilities, and some people are poor because they have low mental capabilities.

Don't just jump on me here, folks -- I come from a comfortably middle-class family, but my uncle is mentally retarded because of a birth injury, and the best education my grandparents could buy couldn't teach him long division. He has managed to hold down a job cleaning animal cages at a vet's, but two of his siblings are college professors, and he has earned a lot less in his life than they have. Sometime intelligence really is the issue.

I don't agree that these biological dimensions mean nothing can be done -- but it is a multi-generational process. If we give all kids good nutrition and a clean environment, including prenatally, then we'll figure out what the real connections between genetics and intelligence are -- and not until then. And there will always be the occasional unfortunate individuals like my uncle.

But too often the idea that everyone can achieve equally is used to trash the schools, especially public schools. And that's just plain unfair.

(Reply to this)(Thread)

beckyzoole
2005-12-14 07:13 pm UTC (link)

I think that it's ridiculous to say that everyone is born with the same abilities. Anyone who has had more than one child knows that each and every newborn infant has a different personalities, its own level of awareness, and develops at its own pace.

BUT, environment is what allows each person to fully develop to the limits of their potential.

People whose brain is damaged, or who got a bad genetic roll of the dice, will never function on an average level. But an excellent environment will help them function at their highest possible level. If your uncle had not had such good parents, he might be institutionalized instead of working at the vet's office.

An average person given an ideal environment will end up average. And average is not bad -- face it, 75% of us are average! But an average person given sub-par prenatal nutrition, poor education, little opportunity, and a culture that devalues learning for that individual, will end up below average.

Someone who inherited extra neurons or whatever it is that makes a brain function at higher speed, will never achieve their potential if that brain is damaged by poor nutrition, pollutants, or abuse. They will not achieve their potential if they are kept ignorant, or not given the opportunity to achieve. They might end up being average -- again, not bad, just... not what they could have been.

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bimmer1200
2005-12-14 07:38 pm UTC (link)

I think there is one factor you aren't including and that is, for lack of a better word; self-discipline. Genetics can be a gift or a curse, just as one's environment can be a gift or a curse. But there is a capacity within a person to take that with which they are born, and the situation in which they grew up and wring something better from it. There are those with all the advantages, who fail to use them and wind up failing. And there are those with every disadvantage who succeed spectacularly.

Save those with extreme mental handicaps, one's destiny is no more written in one's genetic heritage or one's circumstances of birth than it is written in the stars.

	heyfoureyes 2005-12-14 06:19 pm UTC (link)
	amazingly, my uneducated, dirt-poor grandparents -- the most high-achieving one was a plumber -- have given birth to teachers, engineers, computer programmers, and architects. these relatives were born in the u.s. and Puerto Rico in the 50's, and achieved a leap of status due to the educational opportunity and economic health available in their youths. (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	kelathefinn 2005-12-14 06:24 pm UTC (link)
	Precisely what I was talking about. We have to get kids in school - educational opportunity is the key - and we have to make it possible for the families to be well-off enough to allow the kids to go to school, and we have to get the infrastructure built. We're working on it. Some of us. (Reply to this)(Parent)

	bat_cheva 2005-12-14 06:57 pm UTC (link)
	So you think that the smarter kids should sit in a class with the ones who have problems, or are even only average, bored out of their skulls listening to stuff they already know, never learning anything new because the teacher has to repeat material over and over and over again so everyone else can get it? How is that going to help anyone? (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	janet_coburn 2005-12-14 07:35 pm UTC (link)
	If the students didn't learn the thing the first three or five or seventeen times the teacher repeated the material, why does he or she imagine that repeating it again will magically work the next time? (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)(Expand)

	kelathefinn 2005-12-14 07:40 pm UTC (link)
	Please see my reply below. Separate support classes for everyone. Individual instruction, not classroom repetition by rote. Learning by DOING, not 'chalk and talk' but problem-solving. Everyone at their own pace. (Reply to this)(Parent)

	Check out the study done in Wake County, NC mouseworks 2005-12-15 12:00 pm UTC (link)
	The school system made a concerted effort to not have more than 25% poor kids in any given school, and all the kids did fine. One suggestion a friend made was to put the smarter kids to use as assistant teachers. One on one is always better. (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)(Expand)

	starcat_jewel 2005-12-14 06:50 pm UTC (link)
	This kind of argument always reminds me of a line from an Asimov story: "He had begun to notice that those who advocated abandoning the hungry were all themselves well-fed." Me, I think this guy is just too goddamn LAZY to want to do the work. (Reply to this)(Thread)

	carbonelle 2005-12-15 04:05 am UTC (link)
	"He had begun to notice that those who advocated abandoning the hungry were all themselves well-fed". Yes. Well, advocates generally have a lot of free time on their hands, which is not usually the case for those who find it a struggle to stay fed. (Reply to this)(Parent)

	dsgood 2005-12-14 08:23 pm UTC (link)
	Ah, yes. This explains why the Jews in Eastern Europe were so much less literate than the nobility. And it explains why upper-status families in the US have never lost that status. (Reply to this)(Thread)

	starcat_jewel 2005-12-14 08:26 pm UTC (link)
	And why no one in America has ever risen from the lower classes to the ranks of the well-off. (Reply to this)(Parent)

	Meow! idiotgrrl 2005-12-15 01:38 pm UTC (link)
	Sure, they're stupid. Too stupid to buy into his theories is what he means. Snork... (Reply to this)

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